Energy usage in cities is intertwined with its spatial configuration—the denser and more compact the city, the more concentrated and efficient the energy usage is to be expected. To achieve sustainable communities, cities (and their inhabitants) must reconsider its spatial configurations in the context of rapid urbanisation and growth in light of limited resources and conflicting spatial claims. This article seeks to understand how spatial configurations affect transport energy usage in cities and propose an integrated assessment approach factoring spatial configurational analysis in relation to transport energy usage at the micro- and macroscale. Comparing Bergen, Norway, and Zürich, Switzerland, findings showed that spatial configurations were positively correlated to transport energy usage. Street structures suitable for walking and less suitable for car traffic tended to exhibit lower amounts of energy usage. Following this, nine typologies of transport and land use patterns are described to support planning for more sustainable means of transport.@en

The municipality of Bergen in Norway aims to densify fifty per cent of new housing within the city’s central parts. The Ministry of Local Government and Modernisation ordered and financed an investigation to be carried out by the Western Norway University of Applied Sciences and the consulting firm Asplan Viak to give research-based input to the densification strategy debate in Bergen. This article demonstrates how the Space Syntax method can be applied to urban densification strategies in urban planning and policy making. The Geographical Information System (GIS) is used to obtain, select, and aggregate operational information. First, the spatial attributes that constitute an area’s attractiveness were registered. Then, this analysis was modelled after the Spacescape® method. Next, the Space Syntax methodology was applied to predict to-movement and through-movement flow potentials. Finally, through weighting the relevant parameters, including impediments such as land ownership, twelve areas were identified as having major potential for transformation based on their overall score. As it turns out, the spatial structure of the street and road network is the underlying driver for how and where to densify. Now, the challenge is how to apply this knowledge into current planning practice. @en

SPACERGY builds upon the need for planning authorities to develop new models to implement energy transition strategies in the urban environment, departing from the exploitation or reciprocity between space and energy systems. Several policies have been made by each EU nation, but effective and practical tools to guide the urban transformations towards a carbon-neutral future present several challenges. The first challenge is to confront long term changes in envisioning how a specific socio-cultural context can respond to the application of solutions for energy efficiency. Secondly, the engagement of communities in bottom-up approaches mainly includes the sphere of urban planning that underestimates the importance of relating spatial transformations with the energy performances generated in the urban environment. The third challenge regards the tools used for the assessment of the energy performance and the necessity of enlarging the scale in which energy demand is analyzed, from the scale of the building to that of the district. In this context, the project explores the role of mobility, spatial morphologies, infrastructural elements and local community participation in regards to the smart use of local resources. The project addresses a knowledge gap in relation to interactions and synergies between spatial programming, energy and mobility systems planning and stakeholder involvement necessary to improve models of development and governance of urban transformations.

Based on detailed spatial morphology and energy use modeling, SPACERGY develops new toolsets and guidelines necessary to advance the implementation of energy-efficient urban districts. New toolsets are tested in three urban areas under development in the cities of Zurich, Almere, and Bergen, acting as living laboratories for real-time research and action in collaboration with local stakeholders. The results of this research project support planners and decision-makers to facilitate the transition of their communities to more efficient, livable and thus prosperous urban environments.
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Bergen city in Norway is undergoing an enormous population growth. People are moving from the villages to the city. Finding suitable space is a challenge due to Bergen’s situation in between seven mountains. Moreover, Norway’s strong property rights impede the development of integrated plans for densification. At the moment, several privately initiated projects with high building densities are being implemented. However, they are poorly connected to the urban street network, have no active frontages on the ground floor level and therefore tend to be anti-urban. In this respect, Bergen municipality wanted to identify all the possibilities for densification in the current situation. Therefore, the following issues were evaluated: street network and public transport accessibility, building density, degree of functional diversity, restrictions on (private) properties and current land use plans. Our approach was to analyse three areas in Bergen (Bergen centre, Danmarksplass and Mindemyren) in the current situation to discover how the urban transformation takes place in a natural way. Firstly, we studied the relationship between street network accessibility (with the Space Syntax method), degrees of FSI and GSI on building density (with the Spacematrix method) and degrees of function mix. Secondly, we wanted to reveal the legal issues that arise from the strong Norwegian property rights. Thirdly, we added the accessibility of public transport lines through the angular step depth in the model. We combined all these issues by using GIS. It turns out that the degree of street network integration affects the location of commercial activities and the degree of building density and function mix. When the street network accessibility increases on a local and global level, property owners start to submit plans that exploit their properties to the utmost. The same goes for public transport stops with frequently running light rail vehicles. Thus, as follows from the theory of the natural urban transformation process, densification can be steered by improving the street network accessibility on multiple scale levels. The area with the largest potentials for facilitating densification is the Mindemyren area. How and in what way it will take place, depend on the spatial configuration of the local street network and accessibility to public transport stops. Some results from experiments in the Mindemyren area will be demonstrated.@en